Skip to main content
Main

Deviled Chicken

A savory chicken mixture with eggs, breadcrumbs, and spices, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Deviled Chicken

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the filling

  1. Melt the butter in a frying pan.

  2. Add the bread crumbs, milk, chicken, and seasonings; stir over heat until it boils.

  3. Stir in the chopped hard-boiled eggs.

Bake and serve

  1. Fill individual dishes with the mixture.

  2. Sprinkle lightly with bread crumbs.

  3. Brown in a 400°F (200°C) oven.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Parsley + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  5. Nutmeg + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Chicken
Provides the main protein and bulk of the filling.
Eggs
Add body and help bind the chopped mixture together when set.
Bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and give the filling a soft, thickened texture.
Milk
Adds moisture and creaminess, softening the bread crumbs into the mixture.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the filling brown lightly in the oven.

The step that matters

Stir until it boils. Bringing the mixture to a boil while stirring thickens the bread crumbs and milk and keeps the chicken from scorching on the pan bottom. Stopping too early leaves the filling thin and wet.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, milk, butter, parsley, egg, bread, pepper):

  1. Thymefits about as well
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Marjoramfits about as well
  4. Tarragonfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, milk, butter, parsley, egg, bread, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

You might also like

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesChicken BrothChicken Broth257 recipesChicken SoupChicken Soup156 recipesCreamed ChickenCreamed Chicken89 recipes